


The Past

by vakarians_girl



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Minor trauma mention, Pre-Skyhold, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27387013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vakarians_girl/pseuds/vakarians_girl
Summary: Cullen has been thinking about the past lately, but someone can see his faults better than he can.
Relationships: Cullen Rutherford/La'ara Lavellan, Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford
Kudos: 9





	1. An Argument

It was cliché to say that his past haunted him.

Cassandra had recruited him right out from under the rubble of Kirkwall. He shuddered to think how far gone he had been, how thoroughly the darkness and the Lyrium had swallowed him and how easy it was to just follow orders. How painless it had been—relatively speaking. But Meredith had opened his eyes. Well, Hawke had opened his eyes, really, in that final confrontation with Meredith. Her words were sharp, more pointed than she usually was, less sarcastic and more biting, but no less kind.

_“When are you going to start looking forward, instead of back?”_

Cullen sighed, there in the war room. His breath caused the single candle to flicker, and he rubbed his eyes, realizing all at once how they ached and itched and begged to be shut. Hawke was right, in so many ways. He’d been thinking about the past so often of late, and it always made that sick anxiety rise up and pool in his stomach. It felt like it would burst from his throat sometimes, especially when he had seen the Breach up close. When he saw apostates whispering to each other. And, for the past week, whenever he met the elven girl who’d tumbled out of the fade. She refused to be called the Herald of Andraste, and far be it from him to anger her—not because, necessarily, he was scared of her, but because she seemed so fragile that a single crack might make her shatter, might make her even more sharp.

He was afraid of her, even if he couldn’t tell how or why. And she knew it. And she avoided him. And so he was cold, and brusque, and preemptively sharp whenever they met. And all the while, he felt the past churning in his gut.

Today had changed that, though, or at least shifted it some. It began with another tense meeting at the war table. The issue of the Breach was brought up, and how to permanently close it, and he had reminded them all that Templars had skills to suppress magic, and that they would be useful allies. She had stiffened then, standing across the table from him, and he had sharpened in response. Leliana backpedaled, Josephine attempted mediation, and Cassandra just grudgingly pushed for a decision. But she was silent.

They had ended at a stalemate, deciding to send forces into the mountains to deal with the remaining cultists and their tunnels for the time being, and Cullen hurried out, bumping roughly by her but not stopping to apologize. The cold air stung his face briefly as he left the Chantry, the contrast excruciating after the dark, warm, fire-lit room, but he had no time to dwell on it. There were recruits to be trained.

“Commander Cullen!” The shout was punctuated by the Chantry doors slamming open, and Cullen swore he saw snow shake from a nearby pine tree, jostled by the sheer volume. He stopped and turned on his heels, heart sinking as he knew who he would see.

La’ara Lavellan, the not-herald-of-Andraste, stormed her way over to him.

“Yes?” He saw fire ripping through her brown eyes, flaring scarlet across her whole face. He bristled immediately, defensive, but was caught off guard when she came straight up to him, stood on her tiptoes, and shoved a finger into his chest.

“If you have a problem with me or with any other mage here, then just fucking say it!” Cullen spluttered, unsure of how to respond. At first, only Threnn had been looking (well, pretending not to be looking), but now people were starting to turn and stare.

“What do you mean?”

“What do I mean? What do I _mean_? Are you for real? All you’ve done since this has all started—despite the fact that I helped, willingly, is ignore me. I’ve watched, and you ignore every single mage here. Except when you don’t, and then, you’re talking about the dangers of falling prey to abominations like we’re some fucking bunch of power-hungry idiots. Fenedhis!” People were beginning to actively crane their necks and walk closer to view the scene. Cullen realized that the smith, Harritt, had left his post and was standing not ten feet away, and Flissa, horrified and scandalized, had abandoned the bar. Maker. He had to say something, he had to explain.

“I—That’s not—” She pursed her lips and then pressed a finger to his, stopping him immediately.

“I. Wasn’t. Finished.” Cullen fell silent. “Not only do you either ignore us or treat us like we’re greedy children. But then you constantly keep pushing me to ally with the Templars.” She was deadly silent for a moment, and as Cullen stared into her eyes, he noticed for the first time that they were nearly hazel, brown turning into muddy green in a few places. “I shouldn’t have to explain why that’s a fucking problem, Commander!” He flinched, along with half the crowd. “You want to bring them here? All right, forget about me. Forget about the people we’re protecting from them. Think about yourself. Think about how you got out. How you left. People don’t just leave the Templars. You treat us like we’re the fools, and then you invite danger—for us, for me, and for you—into this? _Fuck_ that. Fenedhis. Fenedhis!” She rocked back on her heels, and Cullen remembered that she’d been standing on her toes this whole time. La’ara took a long breath, seething with rage and—Cullen could feel it in the air, and it surprised him—sadness and hurt. Then she continued, voice shaking slightly.

“I don’t know what your past is like, Commander. But I know what our present is. And you can’t ignore us. You can’t ignore me. And you can’t ignore the danger of the Templars just because you want to pardon your past actions.” He saw it slowly start leaving her eyes then, the rage, that was, but there was still pain there.

“I don’t,” he said, almost too quietly for himself to hear. But he knew she’d heard from the way her brow furrowed. “I don’t want to pardon my past actions.”

“Then prove it.” She paused, as though unsure of what to say, and finally, with a softer and embarrassed glance around the two of them, cleared her throat. Though there was still heat behind her words when she spoke next, Cullen could hear something else in her voice. "I don't hate you. Just—I just—forget it." Her exit was as abrupt as her entrance, moving so quickly through the crowd that Cullen wasn’t quite sure how she had done it. He watched her go as the crowd dispersed awkwardly, silently, and with many a furtive glance back his way.

Rude. He had been awfully rude. He had been terribly rude, and he had never meant to be. She was right, and though he would have liked not to have been yelled at in front of all of Haven, he knew he had to listen to her. He had turned around then and gone back into the Chantry. The recruits could do with a little rest, after all. La’ara’s words mingled with Hawke’s in his mind. _You can’t ignore us. You need to look forward._ He thought he had been, really, he thought he’d been doing better—he knew he had, actually. Locking himself in the war room with maps and charts and numerous half-started letters to the Templar order, he suddenly knew where he had done better, and how he had done worse.

The fear he felt all the time, that he tried to push down, it was fear of his past mistakes. It wasn’t the fear of magic that was paralyzing him, though he couldn't deny that he was still afraid of it, at times. It was fear that he would make the same mistakes all over again, that he would hurt mages in the same ways he had before. He wasn’t so afraid of the magic anymore. He was afraid of himself. _You can’t ignore me. Stop looking to the past._ Head in his hands, he let out a long sigh, and then, surprisingly, found himself laughing. Maker, but she was right. He was ignoring the mages, keeping them at arm’s length, being purposefully cold so they would never get close to him. So they could never hurt him, but, more importantly, he could never hurt them. And she had seen the danger in bringing the Templars to Haven long before he ever would have. She was right; he had tried to extricate himself fully and completely, but the call of Lyrium and purpose and simple orders and toxic expectations would have hurt him.

He’d thought long through the evening, alone in the war room. No one bothered him; perhaps they thought him too embarrassed. But strangely, he wasn’t. He felt as though a cloud had been lifted. How strange that he should be revealed to himself by a woman he had only known for the blink of an eye, really. He’d been afraid of his past for so long, and Hawke had been right to tell him to look forward, but he’d still held on too tightly to what was behind. He was still afraid of the return of his past self, and that fear had tethered it to him. Now, he closed his eyes. He remembered a pair of burning brown ones, angry and sad and scared but oh, so collected, so focused on the present. And he slowly tried to will the past away.


	2. An Apology

“You know you were too hard on Curly.” La’ara sighed. Despite the anger she had carried after the confrontation, the anger that drove her to stomp moodily to her small rooms, she knew Varric was right. Her own feelings, the push of remorse against the inside of her mind, the half apology she wished she had committed to, told her as much. Gritting her teeth, she yanked the tie from her ponytail, ignoring the strands of hair that came with it. 

“I know.” She flopped down on the bed, the straw mattress a welcome relief for the tension that had been building in her shoulders. “And I know there’s a reason to be afraid of mages. We are dangerous. We can be dangerous, if we don’t learn.” Varric sighed and shook his head, moving closer. “It’s just hard to be reminded of that danger, all the time.” She took in a shaky breath. “It’s hard to be reminded that it could still happen, even to me.”

“He doesn’t mean it that way.” Irritation surged through her, and she snapped back upright. 

“Then why doesn’t he say something?” She was hurt, and she didn’t want to be wrong.

“Kirkwall was bad, Lightningbug. And before that, Ferelden was bad. Ferelden was very bad.” La’ara shifted slightly, picking at her fingernails. The irritation she had felt only moments ago had transformed into embarrassment. “How often have you two actually spoken?” Nibbling her lip, La’ara let the silence answer for her. Again, Varric sighed, and then he pushed off the wall against which he’d been leaning. When he spoke, his voice had a new, more serious tone to it, one that made her feel like she was playing the role of the chastised little sister. “La’ara, he’s not afraid of you. He’s afraid of his past. He deserves some leeway for that, whatever else you might think.” 

As Varric left, La’ara groaned and threw herself back onto the mattress. Rude. She’d been so rude to him. But hadn’t he been rude to her? Did it matter if he had meant to be rude? Fully chewing her lip now rather than just nibbling, she gazed up at the ceiling. Thoughts danced chaotically in her head, and she found herself trying to count the wooden boards above her rather than think about it all. There was something so soothing, after all, about getting lost in the swirl of the wood grain, grey in some places and brown in others, and the patterns almost seemed to have a sense to them. Soon, she found her eyes drifting closed. But as darkness descended, a curtain across the turmoil of her hectic mind, one last thought slipped through. 

She needed to apologize.

***

Cullen’s breath clouded the early morning air in front of him. He’d slept little last night, but that didn’t matter. He wanted time training for himself, before the recruits were up, and lately the only time he got that was just before sunrise. So, after dressing in the dark, he’d taken a torch with him and gone to run drills with the dummies by the lake. Tiredness threatened to seep into his joints along with the wintry mountain air, but he ignored it. He was good at ignoring his feelings.

Well, most of the time. 

With another huff of air, Cullen pulled the sword back and charged, trying to vary his movements as he imagined the dummy in front of him reacting. At the last minute, he swerved to the side and behind the dummy, shifting his grip in a flash to jab his sword into its back. 

“Impressive, Commander.” Her voice, small but clear in the pre-dawn silence, startled him into a defensive stance, shield angled down in front of him. But it was only La’ara, alone. 

“Ah. Thank you, her--lady Lavellan.” Sheepishly, Cullen stood upright, sheathing his sword. Embarrassment flooded through him for reacting so strongly, when she was so clearly not a threat. His eyes roved over her, taking her in as she stood there. Bundled up in a loose, heavy coat, she looked smaller than she really was. But that was also because of the way she hunched and huddled in over herself, shivering slightly. Cullen realized that even her ears seemed to be twitching in the cold, just as he realized that the hair La’ara usually kept pulled up or back or braided hung long over her shoulders and down to her waist. The long tresses framed her face like a waterfall, and for a moment, he just looked at her. Yesterday’s words hung between them, and Cullen found himself completely unsure of his plan of attack. Strangely, she seemed equally unsure, as she fidgeted with a lock of her hair, twirling the ends around a slim finger. Finally, both of them spoke at the same instant.

“I’m sorry, Commander.”

“You were right, my lady.” Cullen’s words surprised La’ara, whose already large eyes widened. Brow furrowing, she shook her head. 

“No, I wasn't. Not completely. I was--I didn’t think. I didn’t think about your feelings, and I’m sorry.” Strangely, Cullen found himself wanting to laugh. He pulled the shield from his arm and stepped closer to her, not quite sure where to look and rubbing the back of his neck to cover it up. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see La’ara shifting her weight back and forth. Maker, did this have to be so awkward?

“I won’t pretend it didn’t hurt.” He measured his words carefully, but found them easier to say than he had thought they would be. “But I think I needed to hear it, even if I do still disagree with parts of it. And you were right. About the Templars.” _In more ways than you know._ “And I’m sorry, in any case. Sorry that you felt that you had to yell to be heard.” The words out, he chanced a look at her face, only to find her confused and frustrated.

“But--that’s not--I was mean. And everyone saw it.” There was a small pout to her lips that hollowed her cheeks slightly, the creases of her forehead disrupting the lines of her bright blue vallaslin. As the first rays of sunlight eked out from behind the horizon, they seemed to shimmer and dance across the lines of the tattoos, as though something swirled, incandescent and reflective, beneath her skin.

“You spoke your mind.”

“And I didn’t even think about Kirkwall,” the words continued to tumble from her lips, though she now looked away under Cullen’s gaze. There was a frantic tinge to her tone, one that seeped into the tension now pulling her shoulders taught. She still twisted strands of hair between her fingers, her movements now quicker than before. “And you’d be right to be afraid, of mages, I mean, after that. I mean, you’d be right to be afraid of mages normally, it’s not like we’re not dangerous. And I don’t know what happened in Ferelden exactly and I can’t say how normal any of it is or was, I just know that it’s hard to accept that there are mages out there who make people afraid of us.” She took a long breath--the first since she had begun this stream of words--and looked down at Cullen’s feet, as though gathering the courage to look up at his face. “It’s frightening, to know the fear we can cause. And I'm truly sorry for taking out that fear and the frustration of this...whole situation...out on you.” 

The sun was truly rising now, faint orange rays finally reaching the tips of Haven’s gates. Silence descended upon the pair, silence that was now punctuated by the calls and songs of the morning birds. La’ara chewed her lower lip, biting away skin and leaving it red and puffy. The anxiety that usually curled up in her lower stomach was pulled taught throughout her limbs now; she could feel it thrumming with her heartbeat in her throat. She’d said too much. She was bad at this. She opened her mouth, but no words came out, she had no more. Even the edges of her mind were blank, and in panic, she glanced at Cullen. 

The softness in his gaze surprised her, and he held her eyes for a moment before he turned to face the horizon, and the rising sun. His large frame seemed to radiate warmth as he stood next to her, and she wondered when they had ended up standing so close. In lieu of speaking, she watched the way the dawning sunlight traveled across the frozen lake. The panic that had gripped her felt strangely unnecessary as the silence between them drew out. As it turned natural and comfortable. 

“I’m not afraid of you, lady Lavellan.” The words startled her, and she turned her face to look at Cullen, only to find him already looking at her. He seemed to be telling the truth, his eyes genuine and warm. A smile tilted the corners of his mouth upwards, squeezing his cheeks and wrinkling the skin around his nose and eyes. It caught La’ara so off-guard, she gaped like a fish for a moment. And then she shook it off and held out her hand. 

“You can call me La’ara, Commander. It would be nice to start over.” Cullen looked at the delicate fingers proffered to him, fingers that looked like graceful branches or willow rods. Hesitantly, he took her hand, enclosing the cold skin in the warmth of his gloves. 

“Cullen. Call me Cullen.” She smiled at him, and it pulled the tip of her nose downward. Faint mischief came across her features, and she began to shake his hand. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Cullen.” He couldn’t help but chuckle. As the last remaining rays of light cleared the line of trees across the lake, La’ara yawned, drawing her hand back. “I think I’ll need to steal some more sleep before Cassandra yells at me again. But I’ll see you later, Com--Cullen. I’ll see you later, Cullen.” She gave one last smile and then turned. As she walked, the light caught on her hair, the hair that was not quite blonde, not quite brown, and turned it to molten gold, rippling down her figure. 

Cullen couldn’t get the way she had said his name to stop repeating in his head.


End file.
